The Acute Hepatic Failure Study Group proposes to continue the accumulation of data on, and to add to the bank of sera from, cases of acute hepatic failure, to complete analyses of the therapeutic effects on such cases both in the United States and Europe; of glucocorticoid administration to review through multivariate analyses, the relative importance of factors that may influence survival (etiology, age, sex, duration of overt disease, duration of coma at the time of therapeutic intervention, aminotransferase levels, severity of abnormality in prothrombin time); to estimate concentrations of virions in the serum of cases of fulminant Type B hepatitis, as an index of relative risk of transmission to hospital staff; and to clarify the secular trend of mortality due to fulminant viral hepatitis in the United States. No further accessions to the glucocorticoid therapeutic trial are proposed.